Patient Stories 
As first contact caregivers, Intensive Care Unit nurses rarely get the opportunity to find out how their patients ultimately fare. When Dillon Robbins, a grateful patient, returns to thank the caregivers, they each get to experience a rare feeling — closure.
Dillon Robbins enters the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at Monument Health Rapid City Hospital and sees features and faces that are utterly unfamiliar, despite the fact that he spent nearly a month within its walls. He spots a nurse who initially registers a dim recollection of the young man standing before him. After a moment, the nurse, Adam Drake, RN, fully recognizes Dillon as one of his former patients. For his part, Dillon is only just now meeting someone whom he had only heard about, seeing a face he has thus far only been able to imagine.
It is an emotional moment, and long overdue, but a rare occurrence. Dillon has returned to the intensive care unit where he was treated for a traumatic brain injury he suffered one night in the early spring of 2023. Now, exactly one year later, Dillon is in the midst of recovery, with a renewed purpose in his life. It begins with demonstrating his gratitude to the ICU Caregivers at Rapid City Hospital.
On April 15, 2023, Dillon, then a 19-year-old student at South Dakota Mines, fell down a set of stairs at a fraternity party. After being rushed to Rapid City Hospital, he was treated in the Emergency Department and taken directly into surgery. Dillon had suffered a diffuse axonal injury, which is when a whiplash motion causes shearing of the white matter of the brain, leaving microscopic damage – or worse. His brain had shifted 1.5 centimeters to the right, and physicians performed a craniectomy, which is a procedure that removes part of the skull. “To alleviate the pressure so the brain has somewhere to go,” said Bryce Winters, RN, Adam’s colleague and another of Dillon’s caregivers. Dillon’s injury was so severe that he flatlined more than once. After the surgery, Dillon was intubated and comatose for 22 days. Suffering from paralysis, his care was fraught with complications: from a staph infection in the lungs to two bouts of pneumonia and experiencing a phenomenon of frenetic, spiking brain activity, called neurostorming.
Adam and Bryce kept tabs on Dillon and also made a connection with his parents, Matt and Karen, sympathizing with their distress at Dillon’s unsettled condition. The bond the ICU physicians and caregivers developed with Dillon’s family is rare only in that there is seldom a chance for such relationships to develop, so transitory is the nature of Adam and Bryce’s work. “In our unit, they are critically sick,” Adam said. “A lot of times, you may not see them all the way through their care.”
Bryce and Adam are accustomed to taking comfort in the small improvements of their patients. One of the best things that can happen is when a patient is transferred out of the ICU to a different unit, a development that usually signifies improvement. The downside is that, because they are not involved in a patient’s continuing care, ICU staff rarely find out what happens to patients after their transfer. “We work three days a week. So then maybe you come back the next week and they’re gone,” Adam said.
The prognosis for patients with brain injuries can vary. Day in and day out, the caregivers can never really know what to expect. But it seemed like everyone was aware of what was going on with the patient in Room 250. For Adam, seeing what Dillon’s parents were experiencing hit really close to home. “I’m potentially trying to be a dad. And I was thinking about my future children and sharing memories together with them.
So then I’m like, ‘I really hope this kid can recover so they can share those memories or make more memories.’”
Dillon was in the Intensive Care Unit for a total of 22 days. It was not a sure thing that he would completely recover, if at all. It was unclear if he would ever be able to care for himself, no less walk, ever again. The concern on the unit between physicians and nurses on multiple shifts was evident as even the most minor of milestones were tracked. “Once he started making improvements enough to where he could understand us and interact somewhat, you could tell that he had a drive that would push him farther than most. He had a lot to work through, and he knew that. And he wasn’t gonna give up,” said Bryce.
Dillon’s parents were with him on the day of his one year reunion with the caregivers who saved his life, just as they were there for the entirety of his stay in the ICU. Their familiarity with the layout of the hospital corridors speaks to their dedication to seeing through their son’s care, whatever his ultimate fate. The many hours and days they spent worrying were a mere blink for Dillon, however, as his memory from that time is mostly gone.
Even though the caring touch is fleeting, its healing spirit lingers and stays with Dillon wherever he may go in his life. And Dillon carries with him the knowledge that the collective actions of Bryce, Adam and all of the physicians and caregivers to treat him were crucial to his survival and ultimate recovery. In fact, Dillon was so profoundly affected by his experience at Monument Health that he has refocused his career aspirations, changing his college major from engineering to occupational therapy.
Later, Dillon, Matt and Karen meet Bryce, RN on his day off at a local lunch spot. Of all the physicians and nurses to touch Dillon’s life, Bryce was the closest to the Robbins family, having requested specifically to be assigned to Dillon’s room while he was in the ICU. He has stayed in contact with the family and shared in the joys and triumphs of Dillon’s continuing recovery. He feels honored by Dillon’s gratitude. “You don’t always get that thanks,” he said. “I think the epitome of what you seek after you become a nurse is that feeling of, ‘Wow, we helped save this guy’s life. I made a difference.’ You know? And that is very fulfilling.”
